UC-NRLF 


Iflt, 


GIFT  OF 


^MQg- 


GIFT 

S| 
FEE 


ADDRESS 


DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF 

THE  WASHINGTON  STATUE 

AT  NEWARK 
NOVEMBER  2,  1912 

BY 
FRANCIS  J.  SWAYZE 


PRIVATELY   PRINTED 
1913 


3fl#53«S^T52hS2fttfS:S^ 


ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF 
THE  WASHINGTON  STATUE 

AT  NEWARK 
NOVEMBER  2,  1912 


BY 
FRANCIS  J.  SWAYZE 


PRIVATELY  PRINTED 
1913 


ADDRESS 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF 
THE  WASHINGTON  STATUE 

AT  NEWARK 
NOVEMBER  2,  1912 

BY 

FRANCIS  J.  SWAYZE 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

WE  meet  under  the  shadow  of  a  national 
grief.  The  sad  event  of  the  week  again 
reminds  us  if  reminder  were  necessary  of  the 
vanity  of  human  ambition.  We  grieve  for  the 
death  of  a  man  in  high  place,  but  we  console 
ourselves  with  the  thought  of  the  greatness  and 
the  perpetuity  of  the  government  he  served. 
Popular  government  can  not  die.  Fortunately 
for  us  in  this  week  of  excitement  and  turmoil, 
the  death  of  the  Vice-president  causes  no  po 
litical  crisis.  The  electoral  machinery  averts 
what  might  otherwise  be  a  serious  difficulty, 


257192 


and  we  can  rejoice  in  the  wisdom  of  the  foun 
ders  of  the  government.  We  are  here  this 
afternoon  to  unveil  a  monument  to  one  of 
those  founders,  the  gift  of  a  public-spirited 
citizen  of  this  city.  Justice  requires  that  we 
should  remember  him  with  gratitude.  Public 
gifts  of  that  kind  are  not  common  with  us,  and 
we  are  thankful  that  a  citizen  of  Newark  has 
thus  recognized  his  obligations  to  the  city  in 
which  his  fortune  was  made.  He  has  his  re 
ward.  Churchyard  marbles  and  mausoleums 
with  which  men  strive  in  vain  to  perpetuate 
their  memories  are  soon  forgotten  and  passed 
heedlessly  by.  Mr.  Van  Horn's  name  will  be 
remembered  in  Newark  as  long  as  granite  and 
bronze  shall  last.  His  gift  not  only  adorns  the 
city  with  a  work  of  art,  but  will  arouse  and 
stimulate  the  patriotism  of  the  endless  genera 
tions  of  the  future.  Many  a  Newark  boy  will 
be  stirred  by  ambition  to  serve  the  State  by  the 
contemplation  of  the  fame  and  honor  it  brings. 
Many  a  Newark  boy  as  he  passes  this  statue 
will  be  taught  as  books  can  not  teach  him  that 
the  "path  of  duty  is  the  way  to  glory."  Our 
power  goes  with  our  life;  our  wealth  is  scat 
tered  by  our  heirs,  but  the  memory  of  meri 
torious  public  service  endures.  Yonder  on 
Military  Park  we  have  placed  the  statue  of 
Kearny  the  soldier,  and  Frelinghuysen  the 


statesman.  Close  at  hand  are  the  memorials  of 
Seth  Boyden  the  artisan,  and  Monsignor  Doane 
the  upright  citizen.  Facing  the  Court  House  is 
Lincoln,  an  everlasting  personification  of  jus 
tice  to  the  oppressed.  To-day  we  add  the  statue 
of  a  greater  soldier,  a  greater  statesman,  a 
greater  public  benefactor.  Washington  had  the 
supreme  good  fortune  to  be  one  of  the  foun 
ders  of  the  government  and  Lord  Bacon  rightly 
ranks  founders  of  the  State  first  in  the  degrees 
of  sovereign  honor.  If  a  nation's  character  is 
to  be  judged  by  the  heroes  it  chooses  as  its  best 
representatives,  we  may  rest  secure;  for  by 
common  consent  not  of  Americans  only,  but  of 
every  competent  judge,  Washington  stands  in 
the  very  first  rank.  At  his  death  Napoleon  or 
dered  that  for  ten  days  black  crape  be  sus 
pended  from  all  the  standards  and  banners  of 
the  French  Republic.  The  Tory  historian  a  few 
years  later  in  a  panegyric  on  George  III  counts 
it  one  of  the  marks  of  the  greatness  of  the  time 
that  it  was  distinguished  by  the  "disinterested 
virtue,  prophetic  wisdom,  and  imperturbable 
fortitude  of  Washington."  Within  a  few  years 
a  distinguished  Englishman  has  ranked  Wash 
ington  with,  but  superior  to,  Cromwell  and 
William  the  Silent.  The  work  of  Cromwell 
barely  survived  his  lifetime,  and  the  work  of 
William  was  limited  to  a  nation  of  great 


achievements,  but  small  numbers,  living  upon 
a  limited  territory.  The  work  of  Washington 
has  lasted  until  our  own  day  and  bids  fair  to 
last  for  centuries  among  a  people  already  one 
of  the  great  nations  of  the  world  and  destined 
for  still  greater  achievements.  The  compari 
son  with  Cromwell  and  William  the  Silent  you 
perhaps  anticipated.  You  could  hardly  antici 
pate,  I  certainly  did  not,  that  the  same  most 
competent  judge  ranks  Washington's  diplo 
macy  and  policy  above  that  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  Richelieu,  Peter  the  Great,  Louis  XI  of 
France,  Elizabeth  of  England,  William  of 
Orange,  and  Cromwell,  and  that  because  he 
"stood  four  square,  upright,  without  re 
proach."  A  reputation  that  can  win  the  admi 
ration  of  contemporaries  and  endure  for  a  cen 
tury  is  praise  enough.  The  records  have  all 
come  to  light  and  he  has  not  been  shamed. 
There  is  no  need  of  labored  eulogy.  Ignoble 
minds  may  pick  flaws  in  his  character.  A  valet 
judges  according  to  the  standard  of  a  valet. 
There  must  be  a  devil's  advocate  at  the  canon 
ization  of  every  saint;  but  no  one  envies  the 
advocate  his  client. 

Washington  was  fortunate  in  the  time  and 
the  place  of  his  birth.  He  was  born  in  the  eigh 
teenth  century, — the  century  which  laid  the 
foundations  for  the  liberty  of  thought  and  ac- 

CO 


tion,  the  political  and  religious  liberty,  that 
made  possible  the  tremendous  advance  of  the 
nineteenth  century, — the  century  which  saw 
the  beginning  of  free  government  as  we  now 
know  it  and  the  disappearance  of  the  vestiges 
of  feudalism.  Men  were  necessarily  led  to 
study  the  fundamental  principles  of  govern 
ment  as  they  had  never  been  studied  before 
and  have  never  been  studied  since.  He  was 
born  in  Virginia  in  1732,  a  subject  of  George  II 
of  England.  The  old  doctrine  of  the  divine 
right  of  rulers  to  govern  had  already  been  re 
jected  in  the  English  Revolution  of  1688,  and 
the  new  doctrine  of  the  obligation  of  rulers  to 
rule  in  justice  had  already  been  formulated. 
A  dynasty  of  German  kings  on  the  English 
throne  made  it  necessary  for  the  king  to  allow 
his  ministers  to  govern,  and  the  modern  sys 
tem  of  ministerial  responsibility  had  begun.  It 
was  only  when  England  had  a  king  born  and 
educated  in  the  country  and  glorying  in  the 
name  of  Briton  that  a  tendency  to  despotism 
began.  At  the  time  of  Washington's  birth  men 
of  light  and  leading  upon  the  continent  looked 
to  England  for  their  lessons  of  free  govern 
ment.  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  sat  at  the  feet  of 
Locke,  Montesquieu  published  an  elaborate 
panegyric  on  the  English  constitution.  These 
names  are  not  without  significance  for  us,  for 


Jefferson  owned  and  read  Locke's  Treatise  on 
Government  and  from  it  derived  the  principles 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  Hamilton 
and  Madison  were  familiar  with  Montesquieu 
and  modeled  our  Federal  constitution  upon  his 
theories.  Washington  was  not  a  man  of  books, 
but  he  was  born  and  lived  in  an  atmosphere  in 
which  discussions  of  the  fundamental  princi 
ples  of  government  prevailed,  and  like  all  great 
men  was  a  man  of  his  time.  His  life  naturally 
falls  into  four  periods:  the  years  of  training 
and  preparation  from  his  birth  to  the  close  of 
the  French  and  Indian  War;  his  military  career 
as  commander  of  the  troops  during  the  Revo 
lutionary  War;  his  services  during  the  confed 
eration  from  the  treaty  of  peace  to  the  organi 
zation  of  the  Federal  government;  and  his 
Presidency. 

Up  to  the  close  of  the  French  and  Indian 
War,  Virginia  and  the  other  colonies  were  on 
the  frontier.  We  can  hardly  realize  that  at  that 
time,  more  than  one  hundred  years  after  the 
early  settlements,  the  English  colonists  had 
pushed  no  farther  westward.  Those  of  you 
who  are  familiar  with  the  story  of  our  own 
State  will  recall  that  as  late  as  1760  the  line  of 
the  upper  Delaware  from  Easton  to  Port  Jervis 
was  protected  against  attacks  of  hostile  In 
dians  by  a  chain  of  blockhouses,  where  the 


settlers  could  rally  for  military  protection.  It 
was  a  hard  school  and  everything  was  on  a 
small  scale,  but  experience  and  observation  in 
border  warfare  gave  Washington  the  military 
experience  which  subsequently  enabled  him  to 
cope  with  the  trained  officers  of  Great  Britain 
and  the  German  mercenaries.  When  peace 
came  he  returned  to  his  land  in  Virginia  and 
there  spent  the  intervening  twelve  years  until 
the  shot  of  the  embattled  farmers  at  Lexington 
and  Concord  summoned  him  again  to  war.  No 
one  can  study  his  career  for  the  next  eight 
years  without  admiring  the  skill  of  the  general 
who  besieged  the  British  troops  in  Boston, 
forced  their  surrender  of  the  city  and  secured 
New  England  for  the  cause  of  Independence. 
Still  more  admirable  is  the  patience  and  en 
durance  with  which  amidst  doubt  and  discour 
agement,  desertion  and  disaster,  he  managed 
to  keep  his  little  army  together  after  unsuc 
cessful  battles  on  Long  Island  and  about  New 
York,  to  lead  them  safely  in  retreat  across  New 
Jersey,  to  hold  them  in  readiness  to  strike  the 
great  blows  at  Trenton,  and  Princeton,  and 
Monmouth,  and,  as  the  skies  brightened,  to 
shut  Clinton  up  in  New  York,  keep  open  the 
line  of  the  Hudson,  force  the  serious  fighting  to 
the  South,  until  at  last,  with  a  celerity  that  the 
historian  compares  to  that  of  Napoleon  in  the 


campaign  of  Ulm  and  Austerlitz,  he  hurled  his 
army  from  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  to  the 
banks  of  the  James  and  won  the  crowning  vic 
tory  at  Yorktown. 

I  have  heard  a  story  which  I  thought  too 
good  to  be  true,  but  now  know  to  be  reliable. 
Some  years  ago  an  American  in  Berlin  at 
a  public  reception  fell  in  with  a  German  officer 
and  was  astonished  at  his  familiarity  with 
these  campaigns,  and  delighted  at  his  admira 
tion  for  Washington's  strategy.  When  they 
parted  the  German  handed  him  his  card  and 
the  American  read  with  amazement  Field- 
marshal  von  Moltke.  It  is  enough.  Praise 
of  Washington's  military  strategy  by  the  great 
est  military  strategist  since  Napoleon  leaves 
nothing  to  be  said.  It  is  easy  for  critics  to 
refer  to  Washington's  frequent  defeats,  few 
victories  and  forced  retreats,  but  we  must 
judge  a  man  not  merely  by  what  he  does, 
but  by  the  relation  which  what  he  accom 
plishes  bears  to  the  means  at  his  command; 
judged  by  this  standard  no  one  stands  higher. 
With  the  most  slender  resources  of  men  and 
money,  he  accomplished  his  task.  That  task 
was  not  ended  when  peace  was  declared.  We 
had  a  bankrupt  treasury,  a  discordant  confed 
eration  of  States,  mutual  jealousy,  rebellion 
and  strife,  and  relief  seemed  almost  hopeless. 


To  the  more  perfect  union  that  succeeded, 
Washington  contributed  more  than  any  other 
man.  He  had  not  the  learning  of  Madison  nor 
the  unique  political  genius  of  Hamilton,  nor 
the  familiarity  with  the  world  that  made 
Franklin  so  successful  a  diplomat,  but  he  had 
that  extraordinary  good  sense,  that  imperturb 
able  fortitude,  to  use  Alison's  words,  which  en 
abled  him  to  keep  his  temper  in  the  most  trying 
circumstances  and  to  decide  with  what  seems 
unerring  sagacity  between  conflicting  opin 
ions;  above  all,  he  had  the  high  character  tested 
by  years  of  severe  trial,  which  gave  him  the 
confidence  of  all.  He  was  chosen  President  of 
the  Federal  Convention  in  1787,  and  when  the 
new  government  was  formed  in  1789  there  was 
unanimous  consent  that  he  should  be  its  head. 
It  was  then  an  office  which  imposed  serious 
burdens.  Whether  it  brought  honor  or  not  de 
pended  upon  whether  the  new  and  untried  gov 
ernment  proved  a  success.  It  is  one  thing  to 
occupy  a  position  such  as  the  Presidency  has 
now  become,  supported  by  the  allegiance  of 
millions  of  men  habituated  to  obedience  to  the 
National  Government  and  respect  for  its  head. 
It  was  very  different  to  be  the  man  to  set  the 
new  government  on  its  feet,  to  disarm  criti 
cism,  to  win  respect  abroad  and  support  at 
home.  This  was  Washington's  task,  and  this 


he  accomplished.  His  services  during  the  eight 
years  of  his  Presidency  were,  if  possible,  more 
valuable  than  the  services  rendered  during  the 
war  and  under  the  confederation.  He  needed 
the  services  of  the  best  men,  and  the  Federal 
service  then  was  not  attractive.  It  meant  hard 
work,  poor  pay,  uncertain  results.  Men  were 
accustomed  to  the  separate  governments  of  the 
States,  and  that  service  was  more  attractive « 
than  the  service  of  the  National  Government. 
It  was  at  first  difficult  to  get  a  quorum  in  Con 
gress;  the  Supreme  Court  was  without  busi 
ness,  and  Jay  resigned  the  Chief  Justiceship  to 
become  Governor  of  New  York.  The  very 
theory  on  which  the  new  government  was 
founded  was  as  yet  unsettled.  Washington  se 
cured  great  men  for  his  cabinet,  but  the  cabinet 
was  divided  by  the  party  differences  of  Jeffer 
son  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  Hamilton  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Dangers  threat 
ened  from  abroad,  from  France  and  from  Eng 
land.  Between  the  conflicting  opinions  Wash 
ington  had  to  steer  his  way.  He  listened  to  all; 
he  planted  himself  upon  the  Constitution  he 
had  helped  to  frame;  he  preserved  the  inde 
pendence  of  the  United  States  as  he  had  helped 
to  achieve  the  independence  of  the  several 
States,  and  now  after  his  work  has  been  tested 
by  more  than  one  hundred  years  it  is  safe  to 

[103 


challenge  the  world  to  point  out  a  single  erro 
neous  decision  in  a  matter  of  importance.  He 
found  only  the  raw  materials  of  a  nation;  he 
left  it  living,  growing,  enduring.  He  was  a  con 
temporary  of  one  of  the  three  greatest  military 
geniuses  who  ever  lived.  But  Napoleon  left 
his  country  with  a  territory  shrunken  to  much 
smaller  boundaries  than  he  found  it,  with  all 
the  conquests  of  the  republic  lost,  smaller  even 
than  Louis  XVI  had  left  to  the  republic,  and  he 
left  it  with  its  morale  so  shaken  that  it  is  doubt 
ful  if  it  has  ever  recovered  from  the  injury  he 
inflicted  upon  it;  he  saw  the  Prussian  whom  he 
had  humiliated  entering  Paris  in  triumph,  and 
England,  which  he  had  hated,  undisputed  mis 
tress  of  the  seas.  Of  all  his  work  nothing  re 
mains  but  the  leadership  of  his  adversaries  on 
land  and  sea,  and  that  with  which  he  had  least 
to  do — the  Code;  even  the  Concordat  is  now  a 
matter  of  history.  Washington  was  no  mili 
tary  genius;  he  suffered  frequent  defeats;  but 
he  found  thirteen  separate  and  clashing  colo 
nies;  he  achieved  their  independence  from 
Great  Britain;  he  did  his  part  to  weld  them  into 
a  single  nation,  and  to-day  one  hundred  mil 
lion  Americans  remember  him  with  gratitude, 
and  recall  him  with  pride.  ^ 

The  nation  he  founded  has  become  one  of 
the  great  nations  of  the  world  not  merely  be- 

[11] 


cause  of  his  actual  achievement,  but  because 
of  the  heritage  of  his  pure  and  lofty  character, 
which  has  induced  them  to  follow  in  the  main, 
although  with  occasional  shortcomings  and 
backslidings,  his  wise  advice  to  cherish  a  cor 
dial,  habitual,  and  immovable  attachment  to 
the  National  Union,  to  cherish  the  public  credit, 
and  in  foreign  affairs  to  observe  good  faith  and 
justice  toward  all  nations  and  cultivate  peace 
and  harmony  with  all.  If  the  government  he 
founded  is  to  continue  to  prosper,  these  prin 
ciples  must  continue  to  be  observed  and  those 
charged  with  the  administration  of  affairs 
must,  as  he  urged,  confine  themselves  within 
their  respective  constitutional  spheres,  avoid 
ing  in  the  exercise  of  powers  of  one  department 
encroachment  upon  the  others.  I  have  just 
re-read  the  Farewell  Address  and  I  rose  from 
its  reading  with  more  admiration  than  ever  be 
fore.  It  is  as  timely  in  1912  as  it  was  in  1796. 
I  doubt  if  another  document  can  be  found  con 
taining  sounder  opinions,  of  more  enduring 
value,  expressed  in  more  sensible  terms.  We 
admire  and  praise  the  great  general  and  the 
great  President  for  what  he  accomplished  and 
for  what  he  taught,  but  as  I  study  his  career 
I  admire  him  more  for  his  great  character,  his 
unerring  sagacity,  his  prophetic  insight,  his 
fortitude,  his  justice  toward  all,  his  self- 


restraint  and  self-control;  I  admire  him  still 
more  for  the  courage  with  which  he  espoused 
unpopular  causes  when  it  was  right  so  to  do. 
I  admire  him  for  his  advocacy  in  the  face  of 
the  opposition  of  his  own  Virginia  of  the  full 
payment  of  honest  debts  incurred  during  the 
war,  thus  establishing  our  credit  as  an  honest 
nation  and  setting  an  example  which  we  fol 
lowed  eighty  years  later  when  we  paid  our 
debts  in  gold,  although  it  sometimes  cost  us 
nearly  three  dollars  for  one.  I  admire  him  for 
the  firmness  with  which  he  stood  for  the  neu 
trality  of  the  United  States  when  men  clamored 
for  an  alliance  with  France,  thus  enabling  later 
generations  to  steer  clear  of  the  complications 
of  European  politics.  I  admire  him  for  his 
support  of  the  Jay  treaty  with  Great  Britain 
and  the  fulfilment  of  our  obligations  there 
under  when  he  knew  the  majority  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  were  against  him.  We  are  all  of  his 
opinion  now.  It  is  easy  for  a  public  man  to 
keep  his  ear  to  the  ground  and  to  drift  with  the 
popular  current;  it  requires  high  courage  to 
endure  in  silence  popular  obloquy  for  a  cause 
you  know  is  right.  Our  public  men  too  often 
regulate  their  conduct  by  what  they  think  the 
people  want,  which  at  best  is  only  what  the 
majority  want,  and  more  often  only  what  is 
wanted  by  a  plurality,  another  name  for  a  mi- 


nority.  That  can  never  be  the  true  test.  The 
true  test  is  that  adopted  by  Washington,  what 
is  right  and  best  for  the  common  good  of  all; 
and  the  ultimate  safety  of  a  democracy  de 
pends  upon  the  adherence  of  its  leaders  to  this 
standard  that  he  set.  It  is  as  true  to-day  as 
it  was  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago,  that 
the  chosen  heroes  are  the  men  who  dare  to 
stand  alone  and  calmly  await  the  verdict  of  his 
tory  without  condescending  to  the  evanescent 
triumph  of  the  moment. 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  of  any 
University  of  California  Library 
or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 
2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 

(415)642-6233 
1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books 

to  NRLF 
Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days 

prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


mi 


MAKERS 

.SYRACUSE,-  H.Y. 

PAT.  JAN.*I,  I90S 


YC 


50869 


257192 

*J 

J53 


